


notes on a composition in progress

by riverbed



Series: rhapsodies [1]
Category: American Revolution RPF, Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Exhibitionism, Frottage, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Intercrural Sex, Letters, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Mania, Mental Illness, Morning Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, PTSD, Power Play, Role Switch, Romance, Rough Sex, Slow Burn, Slut Shaming, Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempt, Teasing, Undernegotiated Kink, biting kink apparently, mild foot stuff, music fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-11 13:50:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 17,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5628874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverbed/pseuds/riverbed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a war, but we find increasingly that each man's battle is his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. marziale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fullmetalpetticoat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullmetalpetticoat/gifts).



> Previously titled _la lune se lève aussi_ , but I kept going back to the musical analogy. This has ended up being sort of an endeavor. It is about the depths of illness and heartbreak. It is not a happy story, not really, but it is hopeful.
> 
> I'll place any relevant historical notes at the end of each chapter, but it's all over the place. I was more concerned with fun details than a sweeping scope of accuracy.
> 
> Warnings, mm... these are people who don't know how to handle death Not Handling Death. This story focuses on one such person who has taken that to the extreme, manifesting in him as suicidal tendencies. He is surrounded by more people who don't know what they're doing, and as such search themselves for ways not to be angry. This is a really sort of raw portrayal of the thoughts and feelings that come along with death and suicide, basically.  
> There's some gross descriptions of blood, violence, death and near-death.  
> And there is a little bit of unhealthy bdsm conceptualization, the fucked-up desire to inflict violence and have violence inflicted upon oneself. Nothing graphic.
> 
> Written for fullmetalpetticoat, who is as obsessed with Ham/Laf hurt/comfort as I am and foolishly lets me bounce my ridiculous ideas off of her at 3am, and who kindly read the first chapter prior to me posting it to offer her feedback, which turned out to be flattery I didn't hold back on the lewdness. She encourages me, and for that, should be put to death.

Looking down at Hamilton, straddling his chest, it’s almost impossible to tell what bad form he is in.

It is good to be in a real bed, something more forgiving to their beaten bodies than a hard camp cot, a warmer fire and a better supper and the smile of the innkeeper easy, his white teeth unstained by blood like the enlisted man’s at camp.

In the wake of the past days’ events, Lafayette can currently think of nothing more important than reminding this man of his corruption, than punishing him further than the wound has already done, nothing more important than claiming him - and oh, that thought is heavy, that thought is so much, the idea of Hamilton being tamed, being branded; wild Alexander, so stubborn and unrepentant, begging at his feet to be his, under him just as he is now, and oh he is arching and vying and as he comes undone he thinks about the way Hamilton had yielded into their earlier kisses, considers the ease with which he had exhaled and in doing so signaled his acceptance.

_ This is the way it has to be,  _ Lafayette had mouthed silently against his lips, and in answer, Hamilton had shifted the hand against his neck to tangle in his hair and draw him close for another kiss.

When he regains some control, he sees such continued submission in the slack bliss on Alexander's face as he catches the last drops of Lafayette’s come on his lips, darts his tongue out to catch some on it. 

He drags his cock through the lingering fluid and pushes past Hamilton’s soft lips, falling forward to brace himself on one elbow while he rocks his hips gently. Hamilton dutifully swirls his tongue around his softening cock as Lafayette grimaces and rides out the last aftershocks, letting the other aide tend to him far past the point where it becomes officially uncomfortable. It is that dull knife’s-edge between pleasure and pain that he seeks, that awful precipice which overwhelms and all at once dismantles him and immediately threatens, cruelly, to put him back together. He feels it just out of reach, coming into closer view as if he is inching toward an easily-spooked animal. He wants to grab onto it, take hold and shove and force - but if he attempts such a bold endeavor, he knows, this will turn and sprint away, as quickly as he has ever lost something. It will leave a shocking emptiness inside him in the place it had promised to occupy, and he cannot afford to let it go.

So he pursues it, patiently, allowing his body to direct him, letting the vibrations of Alexander’s low moans from his broken throat scale up the walls of his insides as his cock hardens again, too soon, and tightness stirs in his belly. He pushes down the memories, lets them be overridden by the pleasure flooding every sense, hearing himself gasp in the otherwise quiet room when the flat of Hamilton’s wet tongue presses firmly against the ultrasensitive tip of him. If he can keep them off for just a bit more, he may be able to get some rest tonight, the first evening of the week in which he will have done so.

But despite his efforts, they are there, still, rushing eagerly to the front of his mind when it drifts - Laurens at camp with them, drinking with them on the eve of Hamilton’s wedding, pulling them both in for a drunken embrace. Laurens kissing his cheeks in turn, grinning like a fool as he pulled away, getting too much pleasure from such an innocuous custom. Laurens on his soapbox, bravely rallying black men to fight in the war of a country that stole them, risking everything. Laurens wounded, bloodied and dying at Combahee as he and Hamilton were uselessly transcribing negotiations in New York. Hamilton -  _ Hamilton _ wounded, Lafayette, useless again, powerless against the blood that poured from his friend’s thigh to soak the white cravat pulled from his neck. Cannon fire all around them, panic and entrapment, a medic peripheral but unattainable without someone going to him, and the men all around obviously occupied.

He shakes, recognizes with a sob the familiar sensation, his body shuddering loose and his vision blurring through tears and dizziness. He shuts his eyes against them. Alexander swallows around him, his mouth unbearably hot. He pulls his body from Hamilton’s, the separation as palpable as if they had been ripped from each other, cool air rushing to meet his sweat-slicked chest. He rises to sit on the edge of the bed, observes Alexander’s discarded shirt slewn across the surface of the chest of drawers in the corner, his own coat draped too-elegantly over the back of the desk chair, and folds over, rests his head in his hands. He rubs at his temples, sniveling like a boy and ashamed of himself. More than sad, he is frustrated, angry at the British for taking John, at Washington for keeping him leashed to his beck and call, at Alexander for his stupid stunt.

Alexander. His single-mindedness, his rashness, his obsession with legacy, his utter  _ selfishness, _ has nearly cost him another friend. He put his own life and others’ in peril that day at Port - what had started as a routine supply run, one the two officers themselves would not have even been on had they not finished their letters that day and decided the fresh sea air would do them some good, quickly became a scuffle with a privateer who opened fire on the shoreline. Lafayette had taken up post as senior officer, commanding what few ensigns he had use of, but had lost Hamilton in the scramble - later it became known to him that this was because the stupid man had thrown himself directly to the frontlines with the lower-ranked men, disregarding his duty as a commander and his loyalty to Lafayette himself, and gotten shot in the process. Lafayette had gazed at him quizzically, searching the dark eyes for an answer, frustrated upon finding none when his eyelids fluttered over them as Hamilton fought, not hard enough, the urge to pass out. By the time the doctor had finally gotten to them, Hamilton had been unconscious, and Lafayette had given up on him as he had been given up on, resigned himself to yet another depth of loneliness.

“We should talk about this, Alexander.” He sniffles inelegantly, turning sideways to look over his shoulder at his companion. He watches his chest rise and fall, reminding himself that breath is the surest sign of life, in a sense.

Hamilton does not meet his eyes. He stares straight up at the smoke-stained ceiling, then turns away from him, gathering a notebook and quill from the bedside table, and sets up with it in his lap, making a chair of the pillow behind him against the headboard.

“Ignoring me won’t make this go away.”

“You wish to lecture me, and I have no interest in it.”

Lafayette snarls. “ _Vous sot. _ You run out into unplanned battle to die like an imbecile, you wait for me to find you half-dead. You compromise our manpower and your life on purpose.”

Alexander blinks at him. There, he has said it. He will let it hang unrevoked until it sinks in, until Hamilton shakes himself of this nonsensical longing and returns to him as his full self.

“You know the worst of it, Alexander?” Lafayette is unable to help himself; if it is a lecture Hamilton wants, it is a lecture he will get. “This war is over. If you die now, you will be a coward, or worse, an idiot, not the martyr you expect. You wish to leave your wife and children with such a gift? Your dear adopted sisters, so proud of you? Your influential patriot of a father in law, and Washington; you wish to have them know that you abandoned your training and tactical prowess to a stupid amateur impulse? And you wish to give Jefferson and Madison the satisfaction?”

“I didn’t think of -”

“I _know_ ,” Lafayette says, turning in a whirlwind to close the distance between them, seizing Hamilton by the shoulder and leaning close to his face as he speaks, enunciating coldly in his most practiced English. “I know you didn’t think of any of it, you absolute fool. That is precisely the point. You did not think of them, you did not think of anybody aside from yourself.” He sags, his voice softening. “You did not think of me.”

Alexander avoids his gaze. Lafayette wants desperately for him to look at him, for him to see the fury burning in his eyes, see the severity of the response he has inspired with such a scare. He grips his cheeks in one hand, yanks his head around to face him down directly. Alexander sees the challenge; accepts it with a gulp that Lafayette can feel under his palm. “I thought of Laurens,” he admits quietly, studying his French counterpart to find mercy. “Only of Laurens. I want so badly to be with him when I die.”

Lafayette cups his jaw, tendering his touch to only ghost his fingers now against the cheek he had been holding hard enough to bruise. “He’ll be with you when you do,” he whispers, not to anybody in particular, and then, to Alexander: “ _Pour l'amour de Dieu_ , do not rush it.”

He kisses Alexander as his hands come up to meet Lafayette’s wrists, gripping his forearms as an anchor. The inkwell has rolled off the table and onto the floor with their movement and is now tipped over spilling deep black onto the pale carpet. Lafayette watches it consume the threads one by one and can’t help drawing the comparison to the cloud of depression that had moved over Fort Washington when news of Laurens’ death had reached them. Having assumed he has already shed all the tears he could possibly have mustered, he is surprised to find himself crying into the kiss when he tastes salt, and is even more surprised when they pull away to breathe that Alexander has matched him.

Alexander still holds fast to his arms, looking a little lost, though now able to hold his gaze. His eyes are shiny with wet, his lips swollen and parted, his teeth white. Lafayette is suddenly taken by his beauty anew, by the contrast of the skin of his own hand against Hamilton’s Caribbean tan.

“Hurt me,” Hamilton demands, unbidden.

Lafayette strokes his jaw. “What?” he asks, somewhat absently, distracted by an inkstain on Alexander’s chin that he wonders at the logistics of.

“I know you want to. And I think I need it. Ground me, use me, hurt me, remind me of my place, of my service.” He takes a deep, shivery breath.

“You are dangerous,” Lafayette tells him seriously. “This is gruesome.”

“That’s a start,” Hamilton jokes, one corner of his mouth quirking into a half-smile, and Lafayette  _ tsk_s  and chases it away with a soft kiss. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the two years of negotiations between Yorktown and the actual signing of the Treaty of Paris and the official end of the war, there were few actual standoffs between the official belligerents, but a lot based on territory and a _lot_ of pirates causing issues [at sea and in harbors](http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/49summaryat1782.html).
> 
> A notable exception, obviously, is the [battle Laurens died in.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Combahee_River)
> 
> Wrote this while listening to [Florence + The Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEMSJf723BI) and [The Weeknd](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iFa5We6zqw), inappropriately "chill" music for the subject matter, but it makes me feel good.
> 
> Have you guys been watching Turn? Newest revolution obsession. I highly recommend it.


	2. étude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Chapter 2" is actually just a couple of sad drabbles from Hamilton's perspective, the timeline jumping around a bit. 
> 
> The mania described here just pulls from my own experience with such. I don't miss that lack of sleep, tellyouwhut.

In the dream Laurens is just out of reach.

He is above him, or in front of him, and he reaches out but his fingertips don’t quite brush the surface of his freckled skin. It’s even more vivid an illusion than, he thinks, John was in reality, his eyes glowing and his curls like spun copper, everything enhanced, magnified, so as to remind him what he can’t have. Not anymore.

John asks him why he isn’t there. He says he can feel him but can’t see him - says that maybe the wall between them is like a mirror. He asks him why he isn’t there.

Alexander promises him he will be.

He just doesn’t know when.

He tells no one about the dream. Secretly, he wishes they’d all leave him alone, let him deal with this as it deserves to be dealt with. It’s a thought he knows is too horrible to commit to written word - he doesn’t even write it in his private journals.

*

Washington eyes him up and down as he limps into his quarters. Lafayette is seated to his right; Alexander does not miss the positioning, but finds that he does not have the energy to care. Trumbull and Dr. Man are in appearance, as well, fussing with a broken lantern.

Washington speaks very quietly. “I see despite their surrender you are reluctant to relinquish your post as chief thorn in my side, Colonel.”

“It would seem so, Sir.”

“You and the Marquis are taking some time off.” It is the last thing Hamilton wants to hear, but Washington waves away his protests. “I have put you up in a nearby inn, whose accommodations I am told are more than comfortable. I will be in touch with General Lafayette and it will be at his discretion when you are ready to take your duties on again.”

Hamilton shoots Lafayette an icy glare. “Sir, I have no need for -”

“Unless you relish the idea of simply finishing out the remainder of the war at home after honorable discharge, Colonel, I expect this will be to your satisfaction.”

“Yes, Sir.” He salutes as precisely as he can manage out of spite, his back straighter than usual, and leaves his crutch behind when he exits the office.

Later, in his own quarters as he packs, Lafayette claims the whole idea was not his, but Washington’s.

“The general cannot trust you right now,” he reminds him sadly, stepping closer and lacing the fingers of his right hand with those of Alexander’s left. It hurts more than the shock of the bullet had, and Alexander finds himself pressing hard against the still-fresh wound when Lafayette leaves, comparing the tangibility of the two types of pain.

He had had the perfect plan to release him of his despair. Now, it seems, he is doomed to continue finding new means by which to wallow in it, new ways the same muscle can be flayed.

*

Lafayette is exhausted. He is clearly taking advantage of the situation, the permission to be lazy, the opportunity for rest. He sleeps until late in the day, pays the innkeeper to bring their food to their room. Hamilton cannot quite make it back up stairs to his satisfaction so he is effectively trapped as well, lest he request assistance -  _ not going to happen_, he promised the last time Lafayette suggested he do just that in order to be able to take a solitary walk.

Hamilton finds it obscene, his companion’s ability to rest when there is so much work to be done. Suddenly he sees in Lafayette something he has never seen before - idleness. It drives him insane.

He can’t sleep, so he busies himself with wild fantasies of his own death: an arson here, a bayoneted redcoat sneaking up on him there. Occasionally an image of himself in a bathroom mirror, his pistol to his temple.

But Lafayette has taken away his pistol, likely handed it over to Washington for safekeeping. He itches with frustration, wants to scratch off his own skin.

He cannot sleep. He wants so badly to sleep. At this point, he can only write.

He writes Eliza, describing to her as best he can what has happened. To Angelica he writes more openly in confidence, musing at length on his fear that he will leave his children behind, begging for her promise that she will look after Eliza in his stead if he does. He writes to Washington and the other aides, attempting in vain to word his deep-seeded need for work in a more convincing manner.

He writes to Laurens.

He writes to Lafayette, across the room, late at night.  _ I need you to guide me, _ he tells him on paper; sometimes he repeats the mantra for entire pages. When the Frenchman wakes and tells him to go to sleep, he extinguishes the lamp and continues writing in the dark. He waxes poetic about the musculature of Lafayette’s back, writes him love poems, tells him in explicit detail about trysts with Eliza, with Laurens.

He begs him for dark things, for things that flow out of him and surprise him and make his cheeks burn when he reads them back to himself.

_ I need you here, and you are here but you are sleeping_, he writes, and falls asleep on his papers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had some trouble tracking down everyone's exact ranks toward the end of the war, rather than the ones they finished out with. I assume Hamilton was promoted from the Lt. Colonel position he held as aide-de-camp, but I'm not entirely sure. And Lafayette was a General in the U.S.'s eyes by the end of the war, but I don't know when he attained it. Hopefully this isn't a glaring oversight for anybody, and if it is, God willing, they can correct me.
> 
> [*continues writing to ostensibly chill but sort of upsetting music*](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cimoNqiulUE)


	3. mezzo forte

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be the Sex Chapter, but then it wasn't, but then it... was again. You'll see.

Alexander’s mind is racing.

Motier can tell, because Motier is practiced in the study of Alexander Hamilton. He can tell when his thoughts become too much for him to bear; it is in his breathing, in the way he sweats from his palms when Gilbert gathers them to press against his own or kiss the centers of them in turn.

They face each other on the bed. Alexander has finally slept through the night, and as such has boundless energy once again. Alexander has no pen, no command, no pistol to distract him. His limbs fidget restlessly even as he keeps his eyes closed, one hand clasped around the other wrist behind his back, as per Lafayette’s instructions. Intensity pours off him; he is fighting himself to remain as still as he can.

“You’re doing so well, Alexander,” Lafayette praises, running the back of his hand up Hamilton’s uninjured left thigh. He is kneeling before him, his shoulders back and his legs spread slightly, his posture open - a convincing falsity. Lafayette knows how easy it is to spook him.

He takes care not to, easing his touches as Hamilton regulates his breathing, running his hands across his clothed skin in pattern - upper arm, outer thigh, side of stomach - before returning on the next round to press slightly harder than before. Alexander inhales through his nose and exhales deeply through his parted lips, and Lafayette feels it gust against the skin of his neck as he encroaches further on Alexander’s personal space. He remarks inwardly on the brilliance of such a man, the tactical aptitude, lets himself reflect with nostalgic excitement on Alexander’s lethality when he is mentally at his full potential. Alexander is, at his best, precise, authoritative, eloquent, but Lafayette is as intrigued by rare moments of quiet vulnerability as he is by fits of ardent speech. He finds the contrast fascinating, just as he is allured by the disparity between the rich merlot of Alexander’s lips and the mulled cream of his skin.

His left hand on Hamilton’s thigh in a soft grip just above the knee, Lafayette presses the pads of his right index and middle fingers against his bowed lips and lets Alexander set the pace, minding the way his tongue darts out to taste the salt on his hands. Lafayette leans forward a bit to bury his face in Alexander’s shoulder. He had finally convinced his companion to bathe last night, the third of having hot water brought. The previous two, it had been left to cool unused until Lafayette had made use of the basin himself. As Alexander complained over the treatment, Lafayette had washed his hair, massaging his scalp and plaiting it neatly once he had finished. It had dried to a most impressive volume and curl, and Lafayette happily breathes in the slight scent of lavender - French soap, to be sure, finely milled and imported. He has no illusions of the Americans having the same appreciation for small luxuries his own people have.

Alexander has taken it upon himself to bring both fingers into his mouth to the first knuckle, and Lafayette responds by sighing into his neck and sucking a bruise along its side. Hamilton moans softly - obediently, the first sound he has made since they woke - and swirls his tongue around his fingers, drawing him in further. Soon he is as deep as the webbing of his thumb, pistoning his hand in and out of his mouth, leaned back and looking into Alexander’s eyes as he takes him to the back of his throat.

He hooks the digits, pressing them against the roof of Alexander’s mouth, trapping his velvet tongue below his knuckles, and he emits a choked sound as Alexander’s teeth graze them.

“Good little doll,” he hisses, and hardens his grip around Alexander’s thigh, inching it up to touch at the hem of his night-shirt, hinting at where he is bare beneath. “You tease me, but I indulge you.” He leans back in to nip at his earlobe. “Do you want more direction?”

Alexander nods slowly and Lafayette withdraws his wet fingers, Hamilton’s mouth parted as saliva dribbles ungracefully out of it in their absence. He cups his jaw, and Alexander closes his eyes again, feeling like thread through a needle that Lafayette holds between the hand on his knee and the hand holding his face, pressing his own spit to his chin. 

“Keep your mouth open,” Lafayette tells him. “And your tongue out.”

Alexander does as he is told, tilting his head back, resting his tongue slack against his bottom lip, his eyes remaining dutifully shut. Lafayette gasps. “Yeah. Like that,” he says quietly, almost in awe. He sets to work undoing Hamilton’s shirt, shoving it off his shoulders to pool on the bed behind him. He is left nude, the cool air of the room rushing to meet his skin. He feels exposed, knowing full well Lafayette remains thus far in full shirtsleeves and breeches, for he had risen earlier than Hamilton, occupying himself with a letter to Washington on the situation’s progress.

He feels vulnerable. He finds that he appreciates that, finds that his core tightens ever so slightly when he is unsure where Lafayette will touch him next.

His hot breath is millimeters away from Hamilton’s nose. 

The initial sensation as Lafayette pulls his tongue between his own lips is a little strange, but as he sucks gently at the tender muscle, Alexander feels his pulse thrumming in his loins, blood rushing to the site of his arousal, making him go a little dizzy as it passes by the bullet wound in his upper thigh. Suddenly he finds himself hungry for the feeling, keening for it, trying desperately to chase the pain as pleasure washes over him in insufficient replacement, Lafayette wrapping his spit-slicked hand around his hardened flesh, palming him until he is at full attention.

And just like that, he draws back, removing himself cleanly from Alexander’s immediate margins, and Alexander cannot feel him, and his first impulse is to panic. He feels as if the universe has dropped him into unfamiliar territory, feels even at the slight provocation a connection as deep as any he has imagined having, and he _needs_ so purely that empty darkness fills him, colors him a matching, missing hue and makes him buck his hips and gasp for breath and singe for touch.

But he doesn’t open his eyes.

Lafayette rewards him with a hand run through his fine hair, a reminder. Alexander calms immediately and presses back into him, his breath evening again.

“The other evening,” Lafayette says softly, his voice barely in a register high enough to echo through the silent room, “you said you wished for me to hurt you.”

Alexander exhales harshly as Lafayette retakes his position on the bed from standing, sitting beside him and looking him over, his fingers still laced in the hair at the nape of Alexander’s neck. “I don’t know if I can,” he admits, absently tracing the outline of Hamilton’s breastbone with his other hand. He lays his hand flat against his chest, his touch scalding upon Hamilton’s ignited skin.

“This is enough,” Hamilton offers, quiet but succinct. And then: “You will need to eventually. But for now, this is enough.”

“At least there is eventuality to look forward to. I have been unsure of that, these past few weeks.”

Alexander affects formality in his speech. “I apologize if I worried you, Gilbert, it was not my intention to -”

Lafayette shakes his head - to himself, really - and cups his palm against Hamilton’s mouth. “Don’t apologize to me the way you would to your political enemies. Grant me the courtesy of not underestimating my ability to call your bluffs, Alexander. I have known you too long and too well for us to play that game.”

Alexander opens his eyes, now, glances sidelong at him. Lafayette sees the moment his eyes well with tears, running to catch on his lower lashline as he blinks furiously against his cheek. “I am so sorry,” he says, his voice broken. Sobs, now, takes his hands from behind him and clutches as Motier’s shirt. “I don’t know what I am doing,” he says, chokes and sniffs down another sob.

Were Lafayette less acquainted with Alexander’s mood swings, he might assume the tantrum was just another act. Not so, he concludes easily, noting the ruddy flush of distress on his cheeks, different from a bright blush of pure arousal. He pets Hamilton’s hair again, trails his fingertips down his belly.

Somewhere downstairs in the inn, someone plays Clair de lune on the lounge piano, but slower, his fingers not entirely sure of their placement upon the keys. Lafayette uses the music as a guide, dances to it with Alexander, kisses him open-mouthed and undoes his own buttons one-handed in time with the initial taps of sound before the melody, lets the bright swell halfway in be a mirror to the way he pushes Alexander to lay back against the bed. The quietest parts of the suite lilt up through the floor and witness him pressing bruises into Alexander’s hips with his thumbs, the skin going white under the pressure then darkening slightly to purple, to blue. Colors of royalty, he tells himself, pressing his forehead to Alexander’s, sweating, panting in time with him, as proficient a waltz as any as their bodies tense and release in tandem, his name moaned almost mournfully, the subtler French syllables grievously slurred.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent like two hours reading about [18th century style artisanal soapmaking](http://www.outlanderadventures.com/outlander-adventures-in-the-18th-century/soap_creams_tonics/) while writing this, out of pure curiosity? The internet needs to be completely unavailable to me
> 
> Here's the [version of Clair de lune i had in mind](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ml24B7EYz0), which, godsent, started playing on a focus playlist right as I came upon a minor bout of writer's block. I think I learned the entire suite as quick and extremely precise; I enjoyed the way Alain Planes' is sort of uncertain, less insistent.
> 
> I also listened to a lot of Barbara Nissman while writing this. [This piece](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jT0PC6vVxco) has always sounded to me like if you set a noir film in an American western saloon.


	4. reprisal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've waded this far into the ocean of angst this godforsaken fic presents, you deserve some playful, fluffy Ham/Laurens flashback, you absolute trooper, you.
> 
> Everyone is happy, the war is about to be won, and nothing hurts. I'm embarrassed by the lack of hurt to go with this comfort. Who have I become?

_ May 1781, North Carolina _

 

It is a stiflingly hot day, but beautiful, if one could only manage to stave off the continued insistence of the blistering sun. Hamilton trots on ahead, calls back to John over his shoulder: “Surely you see the benefit in keeping up, dear Laurens. This promised little stream of yours awaits, hopefully a cool drink in this stale air.”

Laurens briefly considers rousing his gait to catch up, but decides against it, perfectly happy to lag lazily behind. He trudges through marshy moss, wet with the humidity left by spring’s first rains, as he watches Alexander march, unrelenting, and tug desperately at his sweat-soaked cravat.

“I cannot believe how hot it is. In only May!” Alexander exclaims dramatically when they reach their destination, stretching as he strips himself of most of the uniform options he had chosen for their comparative lightness to others, in color as well as weight, having opted only for a woven cotton vest and no coat. The breeches of cream linen he leaves on, though he tugs his stockings from under them, white and knit loose, probably a gift made by hand by the wife of a fellow officer.

Laurens laughs at him, sitting upon the bank to unbuckle his own shoes. “Do you not find it comforting?” He asks, tossing his leather spatterdashes back against the split trunk of a river birch. Alexander eyes him sideways. “How do you mean?”

Laurens dips the now-bare toes of his left foot into the cool water. “I grew up in this heat,” he reminds Alexander. “Was St. Croix not like this? To me, it feels a bit like coming home. But not quite.”

The unspoken implication hangs in the air a moment while Hamilton crosses the terrain barefoot, carefully minding his footing for poison ivy. He seats himself on the riverbed next to Laurens, gazing across to the opposite bank and the forest beyond with him. “Charleston will belong to the Americans again soon. Cornwallis lost a quarter of his men at Guilford, and General Washington is confident that it was a turning point in the war. He says that the next time the British meet us, they will go in with hearts heavy and heads low, and that surrender will be given easily.”

Hamilton has a way with words, Laurens will give him that.

“Alas, I know you prefer the fast pace of the city, but after the past few winters spent freezing in New York, I must say it is soothing to return to the south. This place could drum up nostalgia in me if I explored enough - I’m sure it has much the same topography as the fields where I spent much of my youth.” He gestures to the woods around them, engrossed by the spring palette. “This sort of nature is what I fight this war for, Hamilton. Look how beautiful it all is.”

Alexander quirks an easy, tight-lipped smile at him. “How did you even find this place?” he blurts out, and Laurens throws his head back to look at the sky through the cover of newly sprouting leaves, their green fresh and bright.

“I grew up under the wing of a trusted slave of my father’s, more so than by his own wretched hand. The man taught me plenty of skills; how to survive off the land. One of the most useful ones was how to always be on track to the nearest body of water.

Alexander smiles, open-mouthed now, full and enthusiastic. “You are brilliant, John Laurens. I see what Washington sees in you and more.” He fiddles with the bow that clubs his hair, and Laurens is suddenly overcome by the urge to reach out and tug it untied, so he does, letting the thick ribbon slip through his fingers and onto the moss-daubed ground. Bush crickets make determined calls from the ground shrubbery. John lets himself play absently with Hamilton’s hair, bunching it up in his fist to scratch at his scalp and comb it back with his fingers as Hamilton leans into the touch. They are so rarely afforded moments in which they are truly alone, he reminds himself, as he indulges in re-memorizing the texture of the fine locks of dark hair, the defined bump of cartilage in his throat, the way his eyes close and sweat beads at his brow. Each time alone with Alexander feels like coming home, like re-learning an instrument he has put down for a little too long.

Dear Alexander, with his unrelenting itch and his restlessness, always acclimating to the newest opportunity without so much as a passing glance backward. Laurens finds it endearing, his broad willingness to retire the old and rabidly usher in the new. But he is also drawn to the moments where he can offer him some calm, some comfort, some peace of mind. Alexander lives his life on the tip of a match, ready to ignite instantaneously if questioned or challenged. It is nice to be able to douse him. Laurens prides himself on being one of the few people who can.

As John’s fingertips drift down Alexander’s bared neck, Hamilton’s own hand goes to his companion’s breeches, toys with the buttons that fasten them. “I know you said your homesickness plagues you here, but we could replace those false memories with real ones,” he promises, foolishly.

“You have ravaged so many special places for me, Alexander Hamilton. At least let me take in the scenery before you raze this one.”

“Scorched earth is what I do best, dear Laurens.”

The moment their lips meet is in sharp contrast to the damp, virginal quiet of early spring, John muses, while their breath is shared and spent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm likely diverging from more than one historical timeline. I didn't feel like verifying the likelihood that Hamilton and Laurens could have possibly been in North Carolina together in the wake of the [battle in Greensboro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Guilford_Court_House). The heart wants what the heart wants.
> 
> soundtracking:  
> [a little bit of this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUUreOgSA1w), [a little bit of that](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aAmxwai3W4)


	5. mezzo piano

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating changes here, for it is the long-awaited Sex Chapter.
> 
> Also, we now return to the dark. I apologize, but I also absolutely do not.

“Lafayette!”

He is woken by an urgent shake to his shoulder, Alexander’s eyes wide with concern in the pale dark. He realizes with some humiliation that his face is wet and his nose is running.

“What? Is everything all right?” He feigns concern for the other, but his best efforts to pretend the dream away are not sufficient this evening. His voice sounds broken and scratched - it is completely obvious. Alexander reaches over him awkwardly to light the Quinquet on the bedside table and Lafayette finds himself pressed into the cotton of his shirt, then feels heat flicker against his face. Alexander is also illuminated, and Lafayette knows immediately that it has been another of the most sleepless of nights for him, not because he looks tired but because he is clearly frenetic. His shirt is well-rumpled - so he has been in bed since they turned in, tossing and turning, rather than up and pacing. He speaks first, and Gilbert finds himself immensely grateful for such a grace.

“Do you know why I don’t sleep?” he asks. Lafayette thinks he knows the answer, but all he can manage to do is grunt and flick his tongue over a place his bottom lip is raw; his throat feels too dry, as if he hasn’t had a drink of water in years. Alexander rakes his eyes painfully over Lafayette, whose head feels heavy as a rock against the pillow.

Apparently unsatisfied with what he finds by way of answer on Gilbert’s face, Hamilton continues. “I’m afraid,” he says quietly, averting his eyes to examine the bed linens from where he sits cross-legged. “When I sleep I think of awful things. I think of the war, I think of all the dead men I was responsible for, their families. Their bodies in the mud, blood running like a stream through wet grass. A neck shot straight through with a bullet. A man falling apart as he runs to me, his arms outstretched, crying out, just wailing. Bones cracking. My children. You. Washington. Laurens.” He looks pointedly at Lafayette. “Sometimes when I wake I am convinced you’re all dead. I have to search my memory, parse what’s real from what’s not, and it’s easier to reach for my gun - you were smart to take that away - or a knife or take the dream’s hint and plan my own execution.”

Lafayette nods. He thinks the dream Alexander is describing sounds a bit too familiar. He also thinks he has purposefully left a few parts out.

Each of them grew up in heartache. Lafayette thinks of Hamilton’s childhood and his head hurts, imagines losing his mother in such traumatic circumstances and is moved to tears. His own had mostly been happy, or so he assumes; too many tutors and distractions were present to really dwell on anything at any given time. He had missed his mother when she passed, but had not really known her, so the feeling was distant, more out of obligation. His great-grandfather had seemed committed to him, to his education, but he had no real attachment to him either - in truth, only his money kept his memory alive. And where he had had servants and close friends and Adrienne, Hamilton had relied only upon himself, fought his way tooth and nail out of his darkness.

Lafayette admires the man’s resolve, his outward hardness and inner softness, the way he has not let the world bitter him, his hidden sensitivity and even his stubbornness. He feels slightly lighter, though he supposes his heart should weigh him down. Capable now, he adjusts their positioning, resting his head in Alexander’s lap, who accepts him, leaning back against the headboard, and messes absently with his thick curls.

He still hasn’t said anything, and falls asleep content with that, hearing Hamilton’s heartbeat under him in the artery in his thigh.

*

He wakes to birds chirping (Lafayette thinks of spring, of greening and rebirth) with his head on Alexander’s chest. His companion has settled low in the bed over the course of the night, and Lafayette is pleased to note that he is sleeping, and rather peacefully. He reaches up, touches two fingers to the tip of his nose, then trails them down to rest upon his chin. He taps, once, twice, not really thinking about it, and feels instantly guilty when Hamilton’s eyes shoot open and fix on him.

But he grins, as if happy to find Lafayette exactly where he is.

“Any dreams?” he prompts. Lafayette clears his throat and finds that he has remembered how to speak.

“No. Well… good ones.”

“Me too.”

Lafayette sits up, too quickly, and closes his eyes to rid himself of the remains of a headache. Hamilton smiles again, his face soft, when Lafayette surges close to kiss him. His body heat draws him in, swallows him whole, and he feels the sudden need to be as tightly bound to Hamilton as possible. He presses their bodies together, sunshine warm against his back, and lays kiss after kiss along his collarbone. Alexander tilts his head back and his moan flutters against Lafayette’s lips. “Very good dreams, indeed, dear Motier,” Alexander whispers as if in reverie, certainly not particularly to Lafayette.

He smiles against Alexander and kisses his way down his body over his shirt, lean muscles in his abdomen jumping as he runs his hands along his sides from waist to hips under his shirt. “Your hands are cold!” he complains, and Gilbert only grins again and reaches higher, making Hamilton shiver delightfully under him.

He pushes up Hamilton’s shirt, bites the thin dark skin of his belly, nipping welts into the places where his legs bend into his hips.

“Gilbert. You’re being cruel,” Hamilton whines, but he also sighs happily, wriggling further down into the bedspread, and Lafayette feels a pang of affection for his comfort. Moving lower, he studies the bandages wrapped around Hamilton’s thigh, the way they are stained less dark with blood than any day before. Progress, regrowth. Close to the next beginning of the cycle. Spring, greening, rebirth.

He refocuses his attention on Alexander’s stomach, worries his teeth again into a spot he has already bitten, sucking a bruise as Alexander gasps and writhes, trying to escape but having nowhere to go between him and the solid mattress. He holds his hips steady and feels Hamilton going rigid against him, finally releases the skin between his teeth and cool air rushes to cover the heat he has placed there and make Hamilton gasp anew.

“God,” he says, breathless, his voice ragged and deep. He keens, arches his back, completely unsubtle. Lafayette shoots him a look and he raises his arms above his head. Lafayette nods approvingly and kneels up, straddling him only for long enough to remove his shirt, and Hamilton replaces his hands up by the headboard so he is stretched out, long and lean and beautiful and damaged but healing. His feet hang over the edge of the bed and his toes curl as Lafayette pays fine and slow attention to the spot just below his pectoralis muscle, the soft flesh of his inner arm, occasionally his neckline and jaw, happy that Alexander surrenders so easily, his mouth parting as if in asking, and Lafayette indulges him, coming up to press against his lips with his own, separating them each time just when Alexander begins enjoying in earnest, his moans tearing out of him into open air when Lafayette goes back to another bit of his exposed skin.

He finally takes some pity on the poor man, relishing the way his name drags from him as he laves his tongue over the head of his cock, ghosting his breath against the tip just when he knows his saliva has had enough time to warm it. He licks a firm stripe up the underside, meeting Alexander’s eyes under heavy lids when he reaches the head again, pressing Hamilton’s cock up against his own stomach. Hamilton shimmies for friction but achieves none as Lafayette pulls back. “You…” he trails off, exhales sharply.

Lafayette knows he is being unfair, but he assumes it’s exactly what Hamilton needs, and judging from the bright rose blush blooming up his body, he is correct. Hamilton is a mess beneath him as he presses his hands against his chest, staying him, synchronizing their breathing, feeling their beings extend and touch and join in the palms of his hands.

“Alexander.” Hamilton’s eyes are closed as he breathes through the intensity, and when he opens them to look at Lafayette, they are dilated wide, only slivers of light brown retina surrounding his pupils. “Do you want this?” Lafayette asks him. Hamilton nods quickly.

“I need your words, Hamilton. I know you have plenty.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Alexander hisses, tongue coming out to lick at his plump, reddened bottom lip. Lafayette leans down to gather it between his teeth and Hamilton bucks against him as he bites down on a particularly small surface area till he tastes iron. He presses his thumb against the little pool of blood when he withdraws, then pushes it into Alexander’s mouth. He sucks around it, tilting his head and letting his eyes drift to half-closed. Lafayette moans, unable to resist kissing Hamilton again as he adjusts them so that the other man’s good leg is propped and bent at the knee. He sits up and hoists his body closer to him so they meet at the groin, and Alexander hooks the leg around his waist, which raises his hips off the bed and practically into Lafayette’s lap.

He groans as Alexander uses the space between himself and the bed for leverage to move up and down against him, finally grows weary of it and yanks at his slim hips again, putting him right where he wants him and holding him still as he enters him. Alexander grimaces and whines through the initial pain, his arms still outstretched above him. Stubborn as ever. Lafayette finds himself suddenly obsessed with breaking that resolve. He holds still until he watches Alexander’s face relax, then begins pumping shallowly, getting him used to the intrusion. It has been a long while since they have done this, and he is mindful of Hamilton’s body’s current general limitations. It seems not to slow him down, though, if the way he is flexing his abdomen to move his hips to match Lafayette is any indication - apparently he has forgotten that his injured leg exists, and Lafayette berates himself for being at all surprised. Alexander is forever adamant that he not be coddled, that impulse now apparently having flowed over to blur lines with masochism.

Fine.

Lafayette reaches around, pulls Hamilton’s leg up to hook over his shoulder instead, and Hamilton cries out as Lafayette angles himself to hit that most sensitive place inside him, and then again, and again, until Hamilton is babbling and begging quietly, straight wisps of hair sticking to his forehead. He is out of his mind, and his mind is so precious to him, but he holds on enough to keep his own thumb and middle finger wrapped around his left wrist above his head.

But his grip slips a little when his body tightens, and Lafayette holds steadfast to him as he bucks up, untouched, and comes against his own stomach, cock jumping and semen rolling in little rivulets in the dips between his muscles as his back arches sharply. His body is easy to manipulate in its post-orgasmic haze, all the steam let out of him, and Lafayette fucks him harder in the aftermath, his body now open and lax, all his weight on him, and Hamilton moans airily and shudders when he brushes his hand against his softening, sensitive cock, which only spurs Lafayette on.

He comes in disbelief that Alexander can lie that taut for that long without breaking his back, and his ears ring. He collapses against his companion, and Hamilton sighs as he drags out of him.

They lie content for a while, frantically replacing what breath they can after all they’ve missed, until Hamilton grows restless. “Thank you,” he tells Lafayette, pressing a slow kiss to the crown of his head and taking a deep breath, inhaling the scent of his hair and musk. Lafayette doesn’t look up.

“For which part?” He asks sarcastically, expecting an equally acerbic reply.

“For listening,” Hamilton says instead, seriously, and scoots out from under him to the edge of the bed to rise and stretch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some [Grimes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt0IiGxNntw) for you this time, just for a change of pace.
> 
> Washington outwardly stoic and diplomatic but seething inside over Alexander's recovery next, I think.


	6. metering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Washington visits Hamilton for the first time in his convalescence.

The word from Lafayette is that Hamilton is, after some fight, resigning himself to convalescing without too much complaint. George is rarely able to make time to visit the modest inn, though it is but two miles away, but when he does, he makes sure to bring gifts for the both of them. For Lafayette, he brings a bottle of nicer wine than the young man is surely used to, and he fawns over it, decanting it in a repurposed flower vase with practiced European elegance.

For Hamilton, knowing the man, he brings work.

He dismisses Lafayette, who bows out of the room and whose footsteps bound down the stairs to the lounge to merrymake with the other guests, whom he has no doubt made friends with. He eyes Alexander, who meets his gaze easily, ever proud. Washington clicks his tongue at him. “Even in such a state, you are utterly nescient in your humility, young man.”

Hamilton is whip-sharp in his observation skills, however, and as such where any other soldier may have been fooled he does not miss the mirth in the admonishment. “The humble are too often forgotten by history, General,” he says, adjusting the way he splays his injured leg against the bed. “I’d rather be too eager than hesitate.” Washington imagines that he must feel rather exposed, clad in breeches but no stockings, shirt but no vest, having been imposed on without announcement and been found abed at noon by his commanding officer. He must be squirming, fatigued but restless.

He unburdens himself of the rest of his parcels on the desk. “Our reliable French ally has been devoted in writing to update me on your condition. I have conferred with him and we decided that in small allotments, and only if and when you feel up to it, perhaps it is time we allowed you to take on some less challenging work, if only for the purpose of sating your apparently extremely loud and persistent malcontent.”

Hamilton beams, brushing off the jab, hope evident in the sparkle of his eyes. He looks suddenly energized - Washington guesses the only thing stopping him from leaping out of the bed propelled by the force of his excitement is the ever-present pain in his thigh.

“Would being assigned to my backlog of correspondence be to your liking? As you are not yet fit for attending negotiation meetings, I would be grateful if you would kindly work your lyrical prowess on some letters to the commanders of my smaller corps especially, those whose morale is perhaps in need of boosting.”

Hamilton scrambles for the twine-bound package of letters Washington tossed toward him, unties it, and begins poring over the pages. George watches the gears turning in his head, empathizing when he scowls or furrows when struck by a description of a particularly challenging situation. Though the war draws closer and closer to resolution, a great many of his men are profoundly disenfranchised, their commands in dire straits due to lack of resources or simply the desertion of too many men. Some entire brigades are missing.

Hamilton reads for hours, asks questions as to the context of the war effort in specifics. Washington fills in the blanks as best he can, leaving out pieces he knows are more than likely to do nothing but upset Alexander - he prods for details on Laurens’ most recent command, for example, but Washington hasn’t the heart to tell him that they have mostly perished or disappeared in the harsh wilderness of the Carolinas.

Men had not been prepared for this war. Washington reflects with affection on how Alexander reminds him of his troops at large, the many men willing to fight for what had more often than not seemed like a lost cause - intelligent, hungry, desperate people with so very much to prove, clawing their way to glory through mud and sick and heat, hunting and killing and scavenging for their taste of liberty. His reverie is tinged with sadness when he considers how protective he has been of Hamilton and Lafayette and Laurens, trusted young geniuses whose votes of confidence had been of the utmost importance to his decision-making since the outbreak of the war, whose generosity with their time and insight had been of such valuable consequence on so many occasions when the stakes had suddenly been raised impossibly higher. He is proud, so proud, of them, of their ferocity being gradually tempered by their learned strategy, of their development as soldiers and as people. He has watched them grow and become more than their backgrounds would lend them - Lafayette, in all his impressive inheritance, happy to make his home here despite objections from what was left of his family, Laurens’ outright betrayal of his father’s business to work on the personal behalf of so many good men whose willingness to fight with them didn’t receive enough credit for its help in wins for the Patriots’ cause, and Hamilton - Hamilton’s efficacy, his ability to weather the most bitter storms, upright and steadfast, ever pushing on through the freezing rain. And now Laurens had been lost, buried under pure white snow, and the sky was a wet sort of dark, so threateningly dark, and Hamilton -

“Sir?” Washington looks up, and only realizes his eyes are wet when Alexander tilts his head in concern upon meeting his eyes.

“Hamilton.” He says, though he knows it isn’t enough. He has repaid Alexander for his influence by being at the helm of the ship that threw his best friend overboard. Congress’ money to Alexander now is bloody, his meager commission salary a mockery of the restitution that should be paid. Washington wonders if in the future they will find a means of resurrecting human souls, and if that will even the score. He assumes not. He assumes Alexander will crusade and avenge Laurens’ death now that the easy path has been made clear to him to be a non-option. He assumes he will take a well-sharpened knife and cut through wild brush and the soft, thin skin at men’s throats alike until he reaches Laurens again, his wits sharp and eyes bright.

He shudders at the image of Alexander’s clothes and hands caked in dirt and blood the same shade of brown.

“Get a few pages of writing done if it relaxes you. There is no rush.” He stands, gathers his cloak. “I will tell Lafayette there is no haste to be made in returning. It is good for him to have the night off, and I trust you will be well.” Washington puts a peculiar emphasis on the words _trust you_. He looks at Alexander carefully.

Alexander watches him leave silently and, somewhat in awe, signs his name at the bottom of a letter for the first time in what has been far too long, and it feels a little like starting to reclaim his identity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the only thing to note here is [john field's nocturne no. 13 in d minor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZYiv2yn-mg) given that nothing else really has the breadth to convey what happened to me writing the end of this chapter


	7. duet, capo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lafayette stews over stuff using Washington as a soundboard.

My dear General

Thank you for another prompt letter. I cannot be more delighted than when the courier comes at the door with your letter each day, little could lighten my spirits more swiftly. Things here are day-to-day. Hamilton, I think, would be happy to let me wait on him entirely, stubborn as he is, as if he cannot work he remains as ever content to flop around like a fish out of water. But I insist to him that in order to progress to a state of more sound mind and heart, he must do for himself, and so while in those first few days certainly I did oblige him, I now find there is less reason to play his games. Yes, there are those things he will not get done if I do not do them for him - and lately they have just gone undone in light, as I now refuse to dress him. I want, as you do, I have no doubt, very much for him to get better, and be not allowed to wallow in despair.

I fear that he needs things to occupy his racing mind. I give him tasks, as you suggest, and he takes them well, usually able to follow his orders. Though I feel badly for giving him chores. They are not the work a man of his caliber is deserving of and I confess that I am not content letting him be satiated by such humdrum. (That is one I learned from Hamilton himself, are you impressed? He teaches me a new word per day or so.)

I confess also that I am as yet still troubled by his actions, much as I am sure you are, too. Your Excellency does not have the perspective I presently enjoy but I know your concern just the same finds Hamilton when you cannot be here in person. I feel it hang heavy in the room at times when he writes you. I also feel his own sadness. There is a great feeling of sadness, all around. This inn is not a happy place - more than the two of us have retreated to convalesce here, as it is in such a rather quiet place in town and few loyalists still reside here. We feel safe but being cut off is a curse in and of itself. Men here have lost friends and brothers, and sometimes sons, for you should see the age of man they are starting now to fight. Ah, well I’m sure you have seen some. The faces too fresh and rosy for my liking, the winter cold dulls them to the bleakest gray.

Those of us who grew up in strife and believe unflinchingly in what’s right know what gray is. That is why we will win this war yet - that is why, at the risk of inspiring American superstition, I will confidently say that we have. We know grayness in all its shades and as such are able to further distance the black from the white. Evil cannot consume those who are able to adapt to it and play it to its advantages, for it surely has some advantages.

I fear Hamilton is too unwilling to bend. He is so upright, so morally rich that the temptation of evil does not even beckon to him, bless his most pure soul. He has only the space to break. My worry is he will snap and fall. Well. He has already shown the potential.

Some evenings I awake and he is in fits, and I think to wake him but I sit up and listen instead, much to my shame. He bites through the skin on his thumb around his nail - I see it in the morning. He tries to silence himself but I listen. He does not know of what he says. I think it best not to tell him. He misses Laurens to such depths, as do each of us. I feel confident imposing upon his Excellency, pray do not tell him the contents of our correspondence during this most difficult time for him even when he achieves better mind. Our friendship hopefully will endure much time and trial, and in interest of respect I wish never for him to know the depth of my worry for him. He is not a man who delights in being fussed over.

You ease my fear General though it remains intent. Each letter is like a little sliver of light in this darkness. As I said this boarding house is not a peaceful place. Downstairs I hear a man cough and assume plague; I hear a shout and assume burglary. I fear my own imagination. I feel a bit like Hamilton must.

If his Excellency would so indulge my curiosity would he be willing to share his thoughts on the dreams. And if he would be so kind as to send more work for myself to do. I find too that I require distraction, as Hamilton being my only one when my work is done is not an option. My most profound fear, I admit, is that he will defeat me in his giddiness to repeatedly jab every button of my patience. I suppose this should make happy us, those devoted to Alexander’s cause. He is valuable to me as Laurens was. I do miss him.

Honorably your most humble obedient Servant  
Lafayette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like writing more correspondence. this was fun and easy - not what I was expecting going into the idea. maybe this'll be a thing that pops up a couple more times or maybe i'll just do one more, in the interest of the marquis' letter not going unanswered.
> 
> i used some of [lafayette's real correspondence with washington](http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-13-02-0063) as a guide for writing this. i dig the way he tended to talk to george, sort of reverently, as if he was the neatest thing since sliced bread. because, i mean, same.  
> [lafayette signed his name like this](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Signature_Lafayette_1787.svg) in case you care. i think he probably tended to go back and forth between signing formally as "The Marquis de Lafayette" and simply his nickname. i think in such informal writings he would have used the latter.
> 
> [some of the most frantic piano playing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyiSCCqOZwI&list=PLct1SwnlL-0eh2lcSdC867iuwdLhQDKq3), because we are a frenzied bunch


	8. ritenuto

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More thinky Lafayette. More interrupted porn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the change of the story's title, and also the adoption of chapter titles. I just think both changes bring the whole piece together nicely.

Alexander is reclined against two pillows propped under him, his body a natural slope from where he is tied with rope to the ornate carving in the cherry wood headboard. Lafayette half-covers his body with his own, lying on his side with a leg hooked over Alexander’s two, his face pressed into Alexander’s neck.

 _“You are unreal.”_ His own French reverberates back against his lips in the hot cavern of the young man’s shoulder, as he kisses a spot on the column of his neck just below his ear, and then takes the lobe between his teeth, gently scraping the skin. Alexander moans and shudders apart at the praise, and Lafayette is not looking but he feels hot fluid spill across his hand. Loosening his grip, he gives three or four more weak strokes, being sure that Alexander is coming down before he releases him. It takes a good while for him to recover, and Lafayette is happy to let his hands roam as he does, drawing his fingertips across the span of his hip and threading the length his hair from scalp to tip through the gaps between his fingers, tugging lightly. When he hears Alexander’s breath return to normal and his heartbeat quiet, he turns his attention upward, runs his thumb soothingly under the rope that is looped around each of Alexander’s wrists in turn.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. It’s a loaded question. Alexander wants to burst out laughing at the lack of pretense, jump out of his skin at the expectation. He wants to answer, _I feel as if I have peaked, I feel as if I could write a thousand pages. I feel as if I am more alive than I have ever wished to be._ He wants to shout, wordlessly. His mind is frantic, racing.

_I feel as though I have finally gone mad._

_I feel amazing._

When Lafayette touches him again, his intake of breath is sharp and icy, fighting to make it into his throat. When his hand wraps around the root of him in an experimental twist, Alexander cries out - it is too much, too soon, and his entire body jolts in protest. “You… I cannot take it yet,” he forces out in shock.

“I don’t see many other options for you, _ange._ ” He glances pointedly at Hamilton’s wrists. Realization flashes in his eyes and in sudden understanding he surges against the bindings in an attempt to kiss him, and Lafayette obliges but does not forget the task at hand. Even as he wraps his tongue around the American’s in an easy victory he moves his practiced hand, slowly and steadily stroking Alexander’s length to feel it grow from softness to fill his hand again, relishing the little jerks and protests Alexander offers when it overwhelms. They encourage him - that is what he wants, to overwhelm, to chase all hope of thought from Alexander for a few precious moments to make way for the full force of clarity. Orgasm lights him up - makes him sharp and warm and attentive. Lafayette wants to take full advantage of that keen receptiveness and delight in driving away all else. He wants to be the reason for the fresh brilliance that will finally come when Alexander hands himself over fully.

It is selfish, his desire to have Hamilton owe him something. But he has been cooped up here as much as his companion has; they have both been stuck. He craves some new perspective.

He breaks their kiss to spit gracelessly in his hand, and Hamilton gives him a look like he is disappointed with his bad manners, but throws his head back in ecstasy when he replaces his hand against his groin, this time applying even pressure to the patch of skin behind his testicles that Lafayette knows from experience makes him respond so well. He presses against his balls from their underside, drags his nails lightly up his cock, and makes Hamilton shiver, now looking fully at his work. He smiles in admiration. “You look good like this, you know,” he tells the young commander, who responds only by exhaling sharply in focus as he closes his fist around him again, only briefly. “I ‘ave said before, but you could sit for painters. You and your pretty skin and long stories. You are a work of art.” He traces a scar on his shoulder, an old knife wound, in emphasis. He brings the hand he’d had wrapped around Hamilton’s cock to his face, frames his cheek and kisses him deeply, stealing his breath and exhaling it back out against him through his nose.

“You are going to be mine tonight, Alexander,” he promises against his lips, thumbing his cheekbone. Alexander huffs, as if to say _get on with it._ Lafayette rolls back to lay fully on his side again and begins to pump at him in earnest now, until Alexander is moaning and thrashing, and then he wraps just his thumb and forefinger tight around his base, holds him down so he cannot buck for better friction. He is reminded of a wild animal, screeching in frustration and panic. Lafayette soothes and comforts Hamilton with little whispers in his ear, watches him settle toward acceptance.

He kisses him again, this time against his the pulse point in his throat. _“Bravo,”_ he praises, carefully removing his hand and curling it around Alexander’s hip. He throws a leg over him, covering him now, kissing his cheek in a press of lips to skin, wanting to taste the salt in Hamilton’s sweat. He breathes in their shared musk like he breathes on a cool night just after there has been rain, like the stuffy air is the most incredible lungs could ask for. _“Bien joli,”_ he sighs, maybe to himself. He sits back, drags the back of his hand up Alexander’s chest and neck and across his jaw, watching the way he closes his eyes, a bit more relaxed now. _“Mon loup,”_ he ruminates aloud, and Hamilton growls, lazily, in a sad imitation of a beast, his face remaining slack in an easy smile.

This evening being devoted to Alexander, Lafayette’s own arousal remains a distant thought he has to consider carefully to even remember. It burns like embers in his belly, reaching and asking but standing down when Lafayette orders. Now, pressed against his body with his own like a promise, it rages to the surface, insistent and wild, but he pushes back, reminding himself of how rewarding it will be to have Alexander grovel. He loses himself in the visual for a moment, imagines Hamilton sobbing for it, pleading for it, as he traces light flourishes against Alexander’s collarbone.

There is a noise from below him and Alexander shifts his body insistently, and when Lafayette turns his attention back to him, he manages to look indignant even through the intense flush of heat in his cheeks.

“Ever the eager one, _ange,”_ Lafayette teases. “It really is time someone taught you some patience.”

“I can be patient!” Alexander huffs. He bucks his hips once, uncomfortably. “But you are being insufferable. And you are on my bum leg.”

Lafayette immediately shifts his weight so he supports more of it, guilt suddenly pulsing heavy through his blood. _“Merde!_ Why did you not say?” He looks behind him, examines the state of Alexander’s leg. Having undone his bandages to let some air to the wound, he had not felt it when he had sat back against his thighs.

“It kind of… the ache was good.” Alexander avoids his gaze. “But it was going numb.”

Lafayette’s eyes go impossibly darker, this time with anger, rapidly clouding his arousal. He sees red. _“Merde,”_ he says again, forcing Alexander to look him in the eye with a hand cupped painfully around his cheek. “I spend a night giving you pleasure and you make your own pain. You need to _let go,_ Alexander.” He does not underestimate his audience - he knows the double meaning will not be lost on Hamilton. He will not do him the discourtesy of talking down to him. He desperately wants him to surrender control of their current situation, and also of his past, of all the loss he has endured. He wants to reach into his soul and cleanse it of heartache for him, purify him of all pain. He is not practiced in troubles of the mind - he has never so much as dealt with his own - so he works the angles he knows, manipulating his body where it is less a matter of guesswork, where he can read and observe and infer and make tactical decisions with measurable outcomes.

He thinks about the image his family projected of a happy home back in Auvergne, idyllic days in the too-short summer spent surveying sweeping valleys and mountains from his backyard, tasting the bitter-dry air on his tongue and longing to run, indefinitely, to roam and find freedom. Ripe as a teenager, and in the fallout after the death of his mother, he had found therapeutic merit in his exploration of his own body, the rapid rise and fall of his chest momentarily distracting him from the weight that seemed wrapped tight around it in his daily activities. He bitterly remembers their monotony, taking care of the horses, transcribing letters for his ailing great-grandfather. His entire life a single, dull chore. By the time word of the revolutionary stir in America had reached him, Lafayette, barely nineteen and absurdly restless, was pining for a cause. He seized the opportunity to run, throwing himself fully into the task of taking ownership over his own destiny, inspired and no longer content to let money and title decide it for him. He and Hamilton’s power struggle, this constant tug-of-war between them, only reflects the striking ways in which the other man’s life has mirrored his own frustrating reality. Their drive is certainly evenly matched, though Lafayette, having grown up tamed and educated, has more insight as to how to conduct it, manipulate it to his benefit. Alexander’s tends to be unchecked, sparking unpredictably like a wildfire and only doused by the challenge of something it doesn’t expect and which is equally as powerful.

Lafayette can be that opposing force. He can rise to the level Alexander needs, come up against him in his moments of blindness, and be a light in the dark. He can be water as much as fire. He is dynamic through practice; he can help Hamilton be better, help him grow where he doesn’t know he needs to. He can demand more.

“Gilbert?” Hamilton sounds small, scared. In spite of himself, he suddenly finds the thought of demanding anything from a man so thoroughly beaten by the world repugnant, as he realizes he is blinking thick tears away to bring him into focus. How can someone so conceited, so rash, so quick to judgement and unconcerned of the judgement he himself invites upon his company, inspire in Lafayette such feelings of deep caring and concern? How can he - he gulps it down, that concept too large to really do any service to with words, anyway. Again, he will not do Hamilton the injustice. He knows the man recognizes what boundaries words do have. He knows this as he leans down and inhales deeply against Hamilton’s hair, as he reaches up to untie the knots around his wrists, as he presses a kiss to his cheek. Somehow this pushes Alexander over an invisible precipice, and he feels his body heave against him, huge sobs raking out of him like an awful earthquake.

He tries to comfort Alexander, but is somewhat fascinated by the thought that this is the first time he has openly shown such emotion since the incident in the harbor - that what he has held in has finally become too much for him to handle. As Lafayette adjusts to lay beside him and gather him into his arms, Alexander chases pathetic breaths, curling to match the bend of Lafayette’s body and let him envelop him, warm and protective. He buries his face in Lafayette’s shoulder, tucking himself against his body more fully, so that they are pressed together from chest to thigh. Lafayette feels the rough skin where the bullet entered Hamilton’s leg and muses on his lost arousal, the promise of something so wonderful and his utter willingness to set it free.

“I did not know that would bring this on. I apologize,” Hamilton says some time later, when they are both half-asleep, dusk having settled itself fully over them.

Lafayette hums in acknowledgement, deep in thought. “It is strange… you have nothing to be sorry for this time, Alexander.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fullmetalpetticoat joked that we both write Lafayette like this:  
>   
> and how could I deny her?


	9. nebenstimme

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Washington responds in brief to Lafayette's letter in the interest of reassuring him.

My Dear Marquis,

It disturbs me to think of our friend Hamilton sleeping the night through in fits. With my letter I will have brought the finest whisky that my aide be able to find around town, in hopes that it will both lift your own spirits as you stay locked in that wretched inn and offer some peace to him tonight. I regret that I cannot be there to help and that a larger cause outweighs our current predicament with the young Mr. Hamilton. Pray be certain he knows that were there any possible rationale for such I would be by his side as much as you. Pray he knows that I care. I am confident he does, as knowing him as I do I am confident he wishes those of us still able would fight what is left of this war to our most impressive capabilities. I am hopeful I am doing what’s right. You would let me know if I weren’t? I rest easier knowing that you are honest with me.

I do sincerely treasure our friendship. I say it so often that surely you grow weary of the words. But I do value our correspondence however it takes place, Marquis. Your wisdom and perspective have brought me unparalleled insight before and continue to do so. I would only put my most steadfast capable man to such a task as Hamilton. I had none other but you whom I could trust so wholly and rely upon so fully. I only hope you’ll not resent me for your troubles. I know you do not blame Hamilton, but there are much goings-on at camp and you are anxious. I know him to be and I know the both of you to be similar in such regard.

Thus your observations remain relevant and astute. You say each of you knows what it is to be in strife; none could argue with such an observation, known family situations considered. I do not pretend to know the workings of your family’s continued intrigues but I know of Alexander’s and he is right to be wounded by them. Much has happened to him. Because he trusts me I cannot go into it in writing, but I know the depth of your friendship and trust that he has confided in you in more than one occasion as he has me. My advice, for the time being, is this: be gentle with him when you can. He deserves gentling. But be a foundation, for I know you to be well adjusted and steady and I know you can help soothe his seasickness when the waves threaten to overtake him. Remember that he has been through bad storms before. He just needs shelter for now.

Until I hear from you again, here are some papers I wish for you to look over. I ask only that you offer me your most honest of thoughts, as always. I will see you both soon - tell Alexander I look forward to it and that I am both yours and his most affectionate servant

GW

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shamelessly used as fodder was [this charming letter](http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/03-13-02-0075) from earlier in the war. Check that shit out! "Your favour of Yesterday conveyed to me fresh proof of that friendship and attachment which I have happily experienced since the first of our acquaintance, and for which I entertain sentiments of the purest affection." I can't be expected to handle that
> 
> Also, I have discovered retroactively that I diverged from some timeline long ago - [here is the letter](http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/99-01-02-09770) where Washington announced Laurens' death to Lafayette, who seems to have been in France at the time. We will assume that they regrouped for those final skirmishes. Nonetheless, the letter is a great read, as are all the rest of them.
> 
>  
> 
> [here's something nice to listen to](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WSGG__mG5g)


	10. crescendo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everything spirals a bit after a confrontation.  
> (This is porn.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy churchgoing.

Things go from bad to worse when Alexander decks a soldier in the pub down the street for insinuating impropriety with General Washington.

Bad, because Lafayette is not quite quick enough to catch his arm, and the punch lands square on the bridge of the boy’s nose - a teenager’s pale, unscarred skin suddenly painted bright with streams of blood flowing rapidly over his mouth and down his jaw. Alexander has spun on his barstool, using the momentum to add power the blow, the unfortunate youth having chosen a bad spot just behind them to crack such a joke to his company. Lafayette puts his arms out as if to break up the altercation, then realizes the futility of such an act and throws his body between the two smaller men, shoving Alexander bodily up against the bar.

The boy behind him finds his forward motion stayed by the solidity of Lafayette’s back, and Lafayette, busy containing Alexander’s flailing arms, shoots him a look over his shoulder that clearly says _Tend to your pride alone._ Flanked by his drunk friends, he holds a bloody palm over his face and drags himself to the bathroom.

Worse because there is a moment, when the sense that the entire bar has chosen a side is obvious, when the violence is palpable in the air and Lafayette can feel it radiating as heat waves coming off of Alexander’s skin, see it beading down his brow as sweat, where his groin brushes Alexander’s and a spark ignites itself out of nothing and he sees fire flash through Alexander’s eyes; a promise.

The moment Lafayette finally gets him up the stairs - even more of a chore when he is drunk than when he’s in pain - and into their room, before he even has a chance to fully close the door, Alexander shoves him up against it. Their scene in the bar is mirrored, Lafayette pinned where Alexander had been in full view of the rest of the patrons. Lafayette looks down at him, stunned. He has a good three to four inches on Hamilton, so his sudden vigor would be a little silly if it were anybody else - but Lafayette has long since learned not to laugh at the man, no matter how intoxicating the temptation. That is, after all, how men get punched.

Alexander’s shirt is off, though Lafayette does not know when that happened, and he is pressing his chest insistently against Lafayette’s, nipping a trail up his jawline to his ear and then back down again.

And then, low against the side of his neck, he says something that knocks the breath right out of Lafayette: “I’d have let you take me over that bar counter, had you not made us leave.”

He manages to right himself for long enough to quietly admonish that Alexander is drunk, that he would prefer not to make a scene, but even as he says it he remembers that Hamilton _lives_ for scenes, and the way that he is breathing against him lends itself to the possibility that perhaps he is not actually as drunk as he usually likes to be when Lafayette lets him out of the inn. Lafayette remembers through his own slight fog that he had nursed one drink the entire night - wonders if maybe Alexander had kept himself sober to look out for them. It’s a nice idea. The thought that he had instinctively trusted his friend as a protector for the first time since Combahee does not miss him.

What is also undeniably nice is the way Alexander is biting at his collarbone, having undone his cravat and possibly just popped his top buttons without regard to their maintenance. Lafayette finds he does not care, overtaken by his companion’s avid attentions. He is laying kisses along his shoulder, his hand having found its way into his shirt to trace with his thumb a particularly long knife scar along his side inside the heat of the cotton. Lafayette’s skin singes. alights, jumps and begs, and he gets what he wishes for - Alexander continues downwards, teasing his way down his stomach with his mouth and hands until he is kneeling in front of him, tugging fervently at the buttons on Lafayette’s trousers - with his teeth, no less.

From flush against his groin Alexander meets his eyes, looking up through his lashes as he flutters them against his cheek, entirely too feminine and coquettish for someone with such hard edges. Lafayette recalls an encounter with his wife, her cheeks rosy, her eyes wide. He thinks of the roundness of Alexander’s hips when the man is bent over in front of him.

He has the sudden feeling that this is all wrong. Alexander always wants to be in charge; even when he puts himself below him he is in charge, and Lafayette cannot abide it, cannot for one second longer let him have the illusion of power -

“Up,” he growls, even as he hoists Hamilton up by a tight grip on his shoulder. He tosses him carelessly toward the bed, letting him stumble and trip backward onto it. His limbs splay out as he catches himself on his elbows, gazing up at Lafayette in wonder as he finishes slipping out of his undershirt. When he catches his eye Alexander spreads his legs wider, expectant, inviting. His hips are angled, crooked so that one leg extends further over the side of the bed, and Alexander stretches it, puts the sole of his foot flat against Lafayette’s fly. His stare is dark, dangerous, as he makes little circles, the ball of his foot generating sweet friction that isn’t _enough_. Lafayette grips his flexing calf just to have something to hold onto, some semblance of clarity in the thick fog of heat and crisis that has swallowed them.

He fights for normalcy as he feels his brain clouding over. He can’t stop thinking about how Alexander has corrupted him, drawn him into his own perverse world and assumed control. He desperately wants to right the wrongs he has been done, to take his frustrations out on Hamilton, his pompous, rash, arrogant friend, whom he knows can take it, but with the utter filth of Alexander’s foot on his groin he once again feels like putty in his hands. He moves his hand down, curls it around the top of Alexander’s foot so his fingertips touch the center of the sole. He has a sudden epiphany and uses the grip as a form of leverage, moving the leg out of the way to swiftly overtake Alexander. He remembers the physical advantage he has over the smaller man. If he wants to push, Lafayette will push back. He is happy to accept Alexander’s invitation to put him in his place.

He leans down over Alexander, letting out breaths that are as measured as possible against his hair. “You crave an audience?” He whispers, running his fingers through it and pausing to kiss the place above his ear. “You wish them all to know how insolent you are, how deserving of punishment?” They are so close, heat bouncing back and forth between them, feeding on itself and growing, the fire raging in their bodies.

Alexander is quiet for a moment, though his breathing hitches, like he can’t believe what he’s just heard and is trying to process it fully before responding. _“Yes,”_ he says finally, sounding so broken and whorish that Lafayette is surprised by his own self-control when he does not flip him over and take him right then and there, for the strength of his longing to do so is so overwhelming he cannot remember ever feeling something quite like it before, or imagine feeling it after. It comes upon him swiftly and takes his own breath away, and Alexander mewls and pines as he kisses him, trying to buck and grind his hips against thin air.

He regains some control, pulling away to look Alexander up and down. “Too bad,” he says with a glimmer in his eye. “Too bad you only have me to fight this evening, Alexander. Too bad it will only be me who tames you for now.”

Alexander whines, closes his eyes, mouths something about not putting up a fight.

Lafayette ignores him. “You would take more, if I wanted you to. I could invite any of those men back here with us and you would not only let him watch, you would offer yourself to him like a prized cut of meat for him to devour. After I was through with you, of course. And I would ‘appily watch him, or them,” - Alexander shivers at that - “I’d watch them lay you out and make you theirs, too, briefly claim you, because all along you would still belong to me.”

“You belong to me, Alexander,” he repeats. He lets the boom of his own voice hang in the room for a moment before quieting it and issuing a command: “Turn over, little doll.”

Alexander shudders again at the nickname and does as he is told, rolling so he lies prone on the bed. Lafayette stands, comes around behind him, hooks two fingers into the laces at the back of his breeches. He tugs, easily lifting Alexander up by the fabric and pulling him back so his legs dangle over the end of the bed. Alexander yelps as his knees hit the floor.

“I suggest you undo your breeches if you wish to serve a purpose, Alexander.” Lafayette lets himself enjoy the way the Z sound in his name floats off his own tongue in his lust, takes in the way Alexander keeps his chest pressed obediently to the bed as he works his fly open and he begins the same work on himself, shoving his trousers down to his ankles and kicking them off. He takes himself in hand as Alexander bares himself. He thinks he is being sneaky when he rocks against the bed, only once, for friction, but Lafayette sees it and is behind him in a flash to grip his hips and pull them outward, from where even if he shifts and moans and humps he cannot reach the fabric of the bedspread.

“Please, I -” Alexander sobs as another restrained movement of his hips comes up fruitless, tries again. “Fuck me,” he says at barely above a whisper, an exhalation of need that stirs Lafayette’s stomach into an absolute tremor. It is obscene, Alexander’s behavior. And he is so beautiful - Lafayette was right about his hips from this angle, as if he could ever forget the way they curve with his thighs pressed together like that. He examines the roughness of the bandage that has been wrapped around Alexander’s thigh since the morning when he dressed it, toying with its edges under precedent of tending to the wound. Alexander lies there panting, his sweat slicking locks of too-long hair against his neck, his back arched and his ass on display just above Lafayette’s attentions. 

All in due time, he tells himself. All in due time.

“How should I punish you, Alexander?” He runs his knuckles down the outside curve of Hamilton’s ass, the skin there supple, soft and tanned. “Maybe I shouldn’t even let you come. Maybe you just haven’t earned it.” He says it evenly, an air of musing in his voice. Alexander’s whine is muffled by the fine down blanket under him. “Maybe I should use you, take my fill and leave you untouched.”

Alexander shifts his hips back and pleads wordlessly. “What do you want, Alexander?” Lafayette asks, knowing fully that he has told him and that he is being cruel. He does not care. Alexander is cruel; the way he closes himself up, makes himself unavailable, his blatant attempts to off himself. He must be reminded of his place, of his station, of Lafayette’s need for his continued companionship.

Alexander huffs in answer and blows a stray lock of thick dark hair out of his face, then shakes his head before returning his cheek to press to the mattress. “You’ll get nothing if you don’t ask,” Lafayette chides him as he leans over to kiss his shoulder blade. It brings them close enough to touch his front to Alexander’s ass, and the American keens, arches his back sharply and pants like a cat in heat. Lafayette lets out a breath. He changes his mind and shoves Alexander up against the bed again, but he can’t move anyway - the strength of Lafayette’s core is strong enough to keep him in place easily.

“Fuck me, _please,”_ Alexander says again, defeated. He sounds so _wrecked,_ so needy, that Lafayette thinks maybe he really has given himself over this time, surrendered his compulsion for debauched control. It is enough, and Lafayette decides to grant him some latitude - he will make him his, but not in the way Alexander expects.

He leans down and breathes out against Alexander, and the moment he licks up the cleft of his ass Alexander goes rigid, tense, and cries out, trying to spread his legs to get Lafayette to shove his tongue in him deeper, wriggling back and forth shamelessly. Lafayette holds him still and in position by the outside of his thighs, his one hand resting on the torn fabric of his bandage, a tiny bit of a threat. He doesn’t dig his nails in, but Alexander knows he will if he pushes, so he submits, breathing labored as he works through the initial sensations of being eaten out. It seems to be one of his favorite activities, being on the receiving end of this, and Lafayette is happy to oblige - his clean skin is overtoned with the tastes of sweat and musk, and the way he reacts, viscerally, with abandon - Lafayette is unsure if there is any other sight quite as beautiful to behold. He wants to keep Alexander there forever, helpless under his tongue and lips, open and vulnerable and panting and slick and gorgeous.

He adds a finger, then two, and when he has Hamilton whining for a third he pulls away completely. Alexander shifts to look back at him, wide-eyed, disbelieving, and Lafayette holds his gaze as he slowly circles the rim of him with the same two fingers, treasuring the way his lips part like he would scream if he could find his voice. Sliding them back in seems to be the catalyst, as he squeezes his eyes shut and shoves out, “I - I thought you were going to -”

Lafayette shushes him by hooking his fingers so their pads rub up against his most sensitive spot, which turns his protests into a loud moan, punctuated in the middle by his voice breaking off completely. “You’ll take what I give you, Alexander,” he tells him, his voice dark, and he uses his other hand to smear some of his spit against the backs of Alexander’s legs where his thighs meet his ass. He slicks down his own cock, too, and slides it against Alexander until he begins pushing back against him, rocking his hips back and forth to try to tempt more friction; he then pushes it into the tight little opening made by the place his legs separate at the top and enjoys the fact that Alexander is so shocked that he goes completely still as he rocks against him.

Alexander feels so _used,_ and it drives him _crazy._ He wants, suddenly, for Lafayette to treat him like this forever, like a piece of furniture, like a toy, like he lacks consequence. Lafayette still has his thick fingers filling him, but he knows he wouldn’t need them to enjoy this; as it is, he has practically forgotten they are there in favor of the way Lafayette’s cock slides against his skin as he pushes deep between his thighs. He feels feminized, womanly, almost able to imagine the wetness slicking him up is his body’s own, dripping against smooth softness.

He grunts as Lafayette ruts against him, groans when he takes a big handful of his hair and tugs backward, keeping his back tautly arched. With the angle changed slightly, he feels a whole new host of sensations - suddenly the way Lafayette fucks him brings his cock right up against his testicles with each thrust, and Alexander is no longer able to demure to the gender fantasy, but it’s no matter because it’s _good,_ it is so fucking good, the noises Lafayette is making above him while he appropriates Alexander’s body to his own best advantages.  
_  
“Petite amie.... venez ici!”_ He pulls away, comes around Alexander to recline on the bed in front of him. Hamilton loves it when Lafayette forgets his impressive English vocabulary, savors always the rare treat of being called such endearingly condescending nicknames in the throes of his passion. It reminds him that he is an outsider, like him, an immigrant and a force to be reckoned with; an equal, in the sense of their shared savagery.

He feels much less like an equal, noting the way Lafayette watches him as he crawls across the bed; in fact, he feels a little like stalked prey, and braces himself for the kill.

Lafayette pulls Alexander on top of him and scoots down the bed so their groins align, sitting up to have full range of motion. He works his hips slowly against Alexander’s, nips at his neck like Alexander did before. “I would take you here, in my lap like this, but this -” he punctuates it with an emphatic roll of his hips - “this is too good, no?” Alexander only gasps, throwing his head back, his mouth open in ecstasy.

“Just let me come, please. Any way you want me to, any way you will have me, I just - I need -” Alexander wishes his arousal-riddled brain let him recall his French. English doesn't have the words for this. He doesn’t know what he needs, only that he trusts Lafayette to get him there.

“If you weren’t such a bad doll, you could have your choice.” Lafayette draws in a sharp breath when his cockhead grinds directly against Alexander’s stomach as he shifts angles. “I would give you anything, if you were good.”

Alexander groans, knowing argument will do him no good. He moves his hips in answer to Lafayette’s, grinding down when he comes up to meet him, and feels filthy, wanton and debased. He _wants_ so acutely - he is unused to the ache of being denied what he desires. And he knows - he _knows_ Lafayette would feed him the entire world off a silver platter, but he also knows that he needs this - needs the test, the challenge, to make him better.

He thinks of Laurens, of the dull ache of being with him, distant, as if the things they wanted were perpetually just out of reach, and compares it to the bright, sharp clarity and indulgence of being with Lafayette, and wonders if love can be two different things.

Lafayette kisses Alexander as he comes, moaning his satisfaction against his lips. He softens the kiss when he’s spent, and he pushes Alexander over, teetering them so their positions switch and he covers the smaller man’s body with his own. It is sensual and tender, and Alexander is trying not to be too demanding of his own pleasure, but the tension in his body is ratcheted up to a level he has previously not come near, and his hips buck into Lafayette of their own accord, making him gasp and bite his lip, growling, when his ultrasensitive cock is bumped by Alexander’s own. He needs to get off, he needs relief, he needs to hit his peak so he can come down and tell Lafayette how much he adores him, appreciates him, loves him; how easy it would be to tell him! To just say the words - 

And then it is there and gone, and he is immediately filled with the wish that he were still at the precipice, when reality had been a little bit more densely shaded, as if in pastels instead of watercolor. The edges fade from his view so all he sees when he opens his eyes is Lafayette’s face, looming and flushed. He has a hand on the side of Alexander’s belly, steady and sure, and he is still draped lazily over him, their bodies pressed together wherever they can be.

Alexander looks up at him, doe-eyed and dazed. “I have something to tell you,” he says, as if he has suddenly realized it.

Lafayette prompts as one should but Alexander falls asleep almost immediately, and he thinks it best not to wake him. Whatever it was, it can wait until morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [this is a little bit more ominous than usual](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zN1PIHPPiHU)


	11. duolo, spinto

Lafayette wakes to the scratch of quill upon paper. He blinks through the initial assault of late-morning sunlight and sits up in the bed to see Alexander across the room, his back to him as he sits in the desk chair, scribbling away at a piece of writing.

“Are you working?” Lafayette asks, and Alexander starts and curses as his pen streaks an inch down the page, the tail of a g now exaggerated. He had apparently been so taken by his own words that the rest of the world had fallen away. Typical.

Regardless, he seems to recover easily, dipping his pen back into the inkwell and tilting his head as he studies his progress. “Most of the time,” he flips, a non-answer. He purses his lips as he presses the pen back to the sheet of paper, the feather curving over the back of his hand. It has gotten so much shorter with sharpening over the years; Lafayette remembers Alexander using that very quill at the beginning of the war, remembers its distinctive coloring. He is more observant than Alexander thinks, and much more in tune to the strange things that betray Alexander’s sentimentalism.

He had asked him about it once, long before Yorktown; he remembers telling Alexander that surely that was the feather of a bird he was unfamiliar with, and, after testing the rigidity of the shaft, had questioned why he did not simply replace it with a stronger pen. Alexander had flouted the question, saying brusquely that it reminded him of home and offering no further embellishment. Lafayette had thought better of asking which home he meant.

Alexander is shirtless in the comfortable heat of the room, his back bare and his olive skin glowing. “Will you not tell me what you are writing?” Hamilton is rarely so guarded about his work; he possesses an unmatched need to tell of his endeavors, and in this way is completely transparent when he actually does shut up. Lafayette knows there is something interesting to be dug out if he can only bring himself to press. That poses a problem - sometimes, when he starts to do so, Alexander shuts down completely, drawing into himself and seemingly numbing himself to Lafayette’s presence, or he flutters his eyelashes at him, coquettish, and drops to his knees, knowing full well that Lafayette will be rendered utterly powerless in the face of such behavior.

His weakness is Alexander, his closest friend, his confidant, his… lover? Lafayette gives himself permission to not approach that thought right now; it is too complicated, too sharply angled to get at just yet. The point is, Alexander knows it, knows the power he has, especially in his precarious state of mind. Lafayette hands it over willingly, lets himself be bribed by the charm Hamilton fakes through his despair, even when he knows indulging it is not healthy.

He resolves to push, deciding the level of closeness they had achieved last night - he had felt something, even if he still isn’t quite sure what it was, and he knows Alexander had felt it, too - was an indication of readiness. And besides, he recalls Alexander having something to tell him. To pretend he had forgotten that promise would be a disservice to the situation.

Hamilton has been quiet; he continues writing, pausing only to muse on word choice. To anyone else, the scene would look normal, but Lafayette has watched him write enough to know that he does not question his own phrasing.

This would be interesting, indeed.

He asks again, and this time, Alexander turns to eye him over his shoulder. “I am writing a letter.”

Lafayette swallows, reminds himself that he is ignoring the impulse to back off. “To whom?”

Hamilton stares at the wall and sighs, wistfully, as if he is trying too hard to remember something fleeting. He says something whisper-quiet, nearly nothing more than a puff of breath. “Speak up,” Lafayette tells him, rising from the bed to cross the room to him. He runs his knuckles from Alexander’s left shoulder to his right.

“To Laurens,” Alexander says, barely louder, but this time at least audible. He is still defiantly not looking at him. Lafayette’s hand stills, coming to rest steady at the nape of Alexander’s neck. He mulls it over, wills the idea to make sense. When it does not, he concludes that he is in no place to judge - grieving is strange and counterproductive, at times one step forward and two back; that is just the nature of it. All at once he regrets this, unsure if this whole thing was the right course of action. Alexander is entitled to his privacy, to his solitude, to his grief; to his love of Laurens however he needs to apply it with the man gone. Lafayette is stunting him, making it harder for him to move on, suddenly he is sure of it. His presence, he feels now, is grotesque, his surveillance improper. He resents Washington for approving such an arrangement. 

But there are moments of such tenderness, such openness… times when he had thought they were making real progress. Lafayette remembers the way Alexander had laid his head so much against his shoulder, and he cannot bring himself to altogether wish the past few weeks had not happened. 

Alexander does not raise his voice, but, unmistakably, he does ask if Lafayette would like to read the letter as he finishes the last stroke of his signature, and all is right in the world, and in their private, obscene, miserable little piece of it, once again.

Disbelieving, he lets Alexander place the letter in his hand, and his arm shakes as he reads the elegant script.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [it's never only the one thing. always another, creeping behind. i held the fear in my mouth; i choked it down and now i'll never let it out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4jMqVIQle0)
> 
>  
> 
> I've been jumping around with the history. I hope it's not too distracting.


	12. a tempo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final letter, the final peace negotiation.
> 
> The song is complete.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, we have come to the end.

My Dear Laurens

I do not need to tell you that I miss you. I have done it so many times that surely you grow tired of the way I laud it on. Still, I miss you. You are missed, generally - men at this inn, whom I have never met, sing songs of praise for you, remark on your bravery and lament your recklessness.

I have realized it is doubtful that my last letter written before you died (dt. 15 Aug.) ever reached you. I cannot help but wonder at the difference if it had - had you read my letter, seen me beg you to lay down your sword and come make a new home in New York, forge yourself a name in Congress, would you have done so? Would you be with me now?

Imagination is a fool’s burden. Yet I cannot help myself. I think of you so often. I allow myself the wish, the indulgence of believing that maybe you would have come to me. Perhaps you would have got that letter just before battle and, upon learning of my desire for your company, would have abandoned your men right there. It is a stupid fantasy. It is so romantic, and you know I try very hard to override my romantic nature… but it is so rich and sweet, the thought of you riding alone to me, ready to embark on our next adventure together, so much quieter, the one we deserved, happy upstate. I would have done my best to make New York home for you. My wife and I would open our home to you, and you would have found happiness there.

Alas, I misrepresent the situation, all is not so peaceful. I remain, in health, traveling back and forth between the City I hold so dear and the Capital, working on negotiations for Washington. The war has fizzled out, but nations have their pride to hold onto. France is helpful. Lafayette, as you know, has remained, along with a few other of the French, to help us. Their diplomacy, after all, is unrivaled.

Lafayette is unrivaled. Again, this you know, but he is invaluable to me; he stays by my side when so many lesser men would have abandoned me. Even when Washington grows weary of my smart mouth, Lafayette challenges me.

I think I love him John, as I did you, but differently. Did we grow together? Perhaps it is just the fog of memory, but I feel as if we stagnated, met each other in the middle and did not push. Maybe we should have - maybe if you had been more officious, or I more persuasive - ah, well. I can’t very well regret these things now. We both had our jobs to do, and our passions. Fortuitous that those often met so happily.

But I cannot be held fast to those memories completely. I cannot live my life in them, after all. I have to tell you, and it is a confession rest assured - I tried to stay locked within them. I tried to back out, tried to follow you. You know despite my hardheaded nature that I always was a follower. You tempted me once more and beckoned from the dark and I tried to dive in headfirst. But Lafayette would not let me, he forced me awake, forced me into the world again. I do not think I could be more thankful to him.

I have so much work to do. I think this may be my last letter, at least for a while. We will keep in touch - you are in my mind always and in each heartbeat. You inform so much of what I do. Please, keep speaking to me. This is not goodbye. I think I am ready to face the world. In fact, I think I am finally secure knowing that you are with me - I no longer need my letters to keep me attached to you. I may write you when I am less sure, and I know there will be those times, when my heartbeat falters and I scramble back to the comfort of memory. I know that you will be there for me when I need you. Selfish as it is, I now have the ability to keep you just as I want you. Your smile will never fade from my mind - I wish for it to burn itself into me forever. I know when I cannot sleep that I will still allow myself that indulgence, those wishful fantasies.

I will miss you, and no doubt already have some regret for ending this. But beginnings intrigue. The world is starting all over again, and I have a front row seat. I have a duty to it. We walk on in darkness and hope someday we may find a light.

Above all else, simply Yours,  
A. Hamilton

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for hanging out through this. You guys are much more than I deserve.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you as always for your feedback, kudos and correspondence. i sincerely appreciate it all.


End file.
